


I'm Looking at Mountain Ranges, I'm Looking at Islands

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The retirement package for either of them has never looked better than this right here; all they need is a porch swing and a pension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Looking at Mountain Ranges, I'm Looking at Islands

**Author's Note:**

> Written while half-asleep somewhere over the Atlantic. Title from Mother Mother's song The Sticks.

York says "So I'm dreaming in code now," and means 'we', and means 'what the fuck?' and means 'we were both expecting this'. Delta is watching him in the mirror from behind his own eyes, green hologram absent at his shoulder and somehow more invasive because of the lack of politely fictional separation. Invasive and intimate are no longer concepts so easily distinguished. Surgical steal and anesthetic seemed invasive at the time, but it was his choice, at least. This should be worse, standing in his boxers in front of a chipped and mildewed mirror in a backwater apartment in a backwater city and never alone, always running from and never able to escape simultaneously.

If you break it down, there is no difference between locksmith and thief, and York is both of these. York is in possession of highly classified, highly valuable Freelancer technology. York is AWOL. York is in the midst of the longest rescue mission of his career. The AI are dangerous; The agents very extensively trained cannon fodder with far too much knowledge. The retirement package for either of them has never looked better than this right here; all they need is a porch swing and a pension.

York doesn't want to say he's lucky, can't without the memories of Carolina and Washington screaming in the back of his head. The Project wasn't prepared for a successful outcome. Logic is as much a lock pick as any physical tool in York's arsenal, and Freelancer has a lot of locked doors. Had. Ten years ago York joined the project and when he was told that his old name was no longer his own, that his identity was contained solely in a ridiculous codename he'd laughed in the Director's face. ...York doesn't remember his birth name, but the principle remains. Call it apathy, call it practicality, but when he and Delta started unlocking doors that no one else wanted unlocked there was no conflict of loyalty in their choice to leave. It was the logical choice. It was a choice that most of his fellow agents --kids, so many of them just kids-- in the program would agonize over for months.

York hasn't pulled Delta once since they left, and delta hasn't once retreated. If he wants to stay under the radar he's got to leave the armour off most of the time, and with it goes the familiar green hologram. They spend a lot of time talking when they aren't trying to restrain themselves to the limitations of physical communication. Delta's trying to figure out what Epsilon knew, still, and York is getting used to his brain being constantly online whenever they're near a hackable net access point, sits in a bar and smokes an entire pack of cigarettes while information scrolls past at impossible speeds behind his eyes. That night Delta almost gets caught, and they go home with the tall woman in scuffed boots who has been watching them across the bar. She tastes like scotch and there are permanent oil stains on her fingers and when she pushes them down on a worn mattress York leaves fingertip bruises over her ribcage and Delta bares their throat. It doesn't fix anything, but it feels good and it's nice to know that he can doze next to another warm body without constantly fearing a knife in the back. Another thing that Freelancer hasn't taken. They're keeping a tally.

York does not have nightmares.

It takes a while for information to trickle down through unofficial channels, so it's a few months before they learn that Sigma has become both hunted and hunter, and a few weeks later than that to start hearing murmurs that Tex is making a name for herself on the mercenary circuit.

York's had about forty-eight hours too long awake and ten doses too many stims and thirty-seven more security troops in the office complex they were robbing than he likes when he paces on impulse into the tattoo parlour in the twisting side street a few blocks from his apartment. He's going to have to move after today anyway, he may as well take the chance.

"Really, York?"

He laughs under his breath, stale adrenaline shattered glass grinding through his bloodstream. "Don't you know, D? We're criminals now. Probably always were. A little new ink isn't gonna make anything worse."

Most of York's work is old and faded and the sort of thing someone else might regret, but the green lines of code across his hipbones stand out bright and vibrant and every drop of blood the artist wipes away is something else that Freelancer can't take from them.

York calls Delta his left side. Neither of them talk about Sigma and Maine. Delta is a fragment-- what the hell does that make York? He's noticed that Delta doesn't talk about the Alpha anymore, don't think he hasn't. York is three drinks in to a long night and delta is six levels down in the security of the UNSC Special Project system and there's $3000 on the chip in his pocket and there are probabilities running steadily in the background and he doesn't even know which one of them is doing it, doesn't know if there is a "which one" anymore.

He dreams in lines of numbers and screams and-- York doesn't have nightmares and Delta doesn’t dream, but the unfamiliar voices are there anyway, the numbers running faster and faster until all possible outcomes have been exhausted. York has taught Delta about empathy. York and Delta are Freelancer property and they are saving each other, they are saving themselves. The locksmiths, the thieves, they have stolen themselves in a fit of selfishness, even if they don't want to admit it. At some point they will steal enough from each other that there won't be a difference, 50% of one, one half of the other and only one body with its scars and its numbers and its nightmares. They look in mirrors and see each other.


End file.
